Yesterday I set, in my Fujifilm X-T1 camera configuration menu page, a Full HD video quality to make high-quality videos and I did some of them using the Fujifilm Camera Remote app. Then when I processed those movies with Adobe Premiere, I noticed than some were Full HD (1929×1080) while others only in HD (1280×720).
Doing some tests, I realized that if I start a video directly from the camera, this is recorded with the quality currently set (i.e. Full HD). On the contrary, if I start a video from the Camera Remote app (without changing nothing in both camera configuration and photo lens) the recorded video is only HD.
So, I supposed that in that app there was some configuration setting that changed the camera behavior …. but I could not find any section in the app where the quality of the video may be set/changed!

First I had a look at the online manual of Camera Remote app … but nothing is said about limitations in making videos!!

As usual, I searched for an answer on Internet and I found this nice YouTube video about the use of that app for the same camera I got (i.e.  X-T1), so I posted a comment asking for that topic. The guy kindly gave me the following answer: “Sadly, this is a limitation since the first version of the app that has never been fixed, even after the app got revamped last year … everybody complains about it, but somehow this has never gotten on top of the pile of bug fixes“.

Then I asked the dpreview forum too and I got the same sad answer: “The app is limited to 720p no matter what you do“.

Finally, I tried also to ask in the Fujifilm forum in the official Fuji site, but no answer till now … even though I think it is already stated!

I think that this is a big and sad limitation that makes the Fujifilm Camera Remote app virtually unusable to make high-quality videos!

It is moreover strange that no alert message is at least displayed, alerting the user that the video quality will not be the one set on the camera. For example, I notice that in the Olympus Image Share app, when I try to remotely record a video with my Olympus Stylus TG-5 set to make a 4K resolution video, at least it shows a popup alerting me that it will be recorded “only” as a Full HD (FHD) video:

Olympus Image Share app, when I try to remotely record a video with my Olympus Stylus TG-5 set to make a 4K resolution video, it shows a popup alerting me that it will be recorder at FHD

Moreover both cameras have further limitations regarding video recording (i.e. limited duration – around 6 minutes but even less for high quality video; no pause function available). So even though lenses are good and they can be cheanged in some cases, those cameras are not the best choice if video recording is your main target!

Therefore, I hope Fujifilm Camera Remote app will be improved also in this in the next release …